


or sometimes still

by kamsangi



Series: 다가오는 저 폭풍우를 견뎌 줘 [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alpha Bang Chan, Alpha/Beta/Omega - Minor Secondary Gender Dysphoria, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon, Descriptions of biting and claiming, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Feral Behavior, Light Angst, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, More complicated feelings regarding late presentation, Muzzles, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Lee Felix, Pack Dynamics, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Rut Symptoms, Scenting, Slight mention of Chan with a breeding kink, Stray Kids As Pack, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:27:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29083128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamsangi/pseuds/kamsangi
Summary: He pushes himself off the bed and heads into the bathroom to take a leak. The mirror’s clean, reflecting himself back in his own bloodshot eyes as he washes his hands. His skin’s flushed up to the tips of his ears. There’s a redness around his mouth that’s the product of days of chewing on his own lips, claim-hungry and irritated by the lack of mouth-to-skin contact.Chris feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin.
Relationships: Bang Chan & Stray Kids Ensemble, Bang Chan/Lee Felix
Series: 다가오는 저 폭풍우를 견뎌 줘 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133231
Comments: 26
Kudos: 344





	or sometimes still

**Author's Note:**

> this is very much just the continuation of an unconventional exploration into alpha chan presenting late and having to experience his first rut (and not necessarily enjoying the entire process, but still getting through it with the help of his pack). hope you all like more hurt/comfort and non-trad dynamics!

There’s no one in the room when he blinks out of a restless, unhelpful nap, eyes sticky with filmy, residual tears. Chris doesn’t know how much time has passed. The blanket’s drawn up to his shoulders, but he’s starting to feel overheated again. Violently feverish, irritated, and aching in places he never thought could ache. He shifts slightly, turning his head, and feels the leather strap of his muzzle briefly unstick from his warm, clammy skin.

Chris shuts his eyes again, and rubs his cheek against the pillow. Felix’s pillow, in Felix’s bed. He’s been curled up here for hours now, clinging to Felix’s scent in an attempt to grasp onto the slight comfort that it brings him. The weak substitution for Felix’s actual scent whenever he’s not here.

It’s still not enough.

The pounding in his head is jackhammer-constant. The need for something, some intangible something that Chris still can’t place, has only intensified. Everything feels off-kilter and unbalanced. Chris aches _everywhere._

It's three days before he's supposed to go into rut, before he's sent two floors above their dorm to the containment dorm specifically built for the building’s occupants. Trainees, their group, managers and staff who live on different floors.

They’d sent him home yesterday after nearly dropping to his knees during practice, knees as unsteady as a newborn lamb’s, unwilling to be touched by anyone other than the kids. Since then, he’s spent the last twelve hours alternating between being fed smoothies by the others and drifting in and out of brief, ever-unlasting consciousness.

He doesn’t want this. He doesn’t want to feel like this, doesn’t want to go through any of this—he doesn’t want to be an alpha, why does he _have_ to be one now—it’s not fair, it’s unfair, he _shouldn’t have to._ He shouldn’t have to. He doesn’t want to.

Chris doesn’t realise he’s crying until there’s the touch of a gentle hand swiping under his left eye, catching a tear before it runs under the muzzle strap. It’s not Felix, but it’s Jisung, who’s murmuring that it’s okay. That it’ll be fine. Changbin’s hovering behind his shoulder, eyebrows drawn closely together, mouth downturned. “Just a few more days, huh?” Jisung’s chattering softly, the way he does whenever he’s trying to calm someone else down, “just a little longer. It’ll be okay.”

Just a little longer.

Chris’ breath is shaky when he inhales, the tiny sound he makes when he exhales coming out low and unhappy. He doesn’t want a few more days of this. He doesn’t want any of it.

The bed creaks slightly when Changbin’s weight comes to rest on the edge of it. A careful hand comes up to pet his hair for a sweet, short moment. Chris closes his eyes, tilts into his caress, reins his emotions in. Their clean, uncompromised beta scents wrap around him, letting him know that he’s safe, they’re here and he’s safe. Pack, they’re pack, they’re his pack and they’re going to take good care of him like they always have.

At this point, he doesn’t even care that he’d normally be balking at letting them see him like this—teary-eyed and whimpering like a kid. He’s supposed to be the strong one, here. He’s supposed to be the one taking care of them, not the other way around. Leader, alpha—he doesn’t quite feel like either, right now.

At this point, all that matters is that they’re here.

The ache in his bones disperses momentarily, only for a new sort of ache to fill him right back up. He aches for the time that their scents used to match, all three of them. Three betas who’d synchronised so well over music, three betas who’d worked better than anyone else could. Not just in music, but as their own little pack. The fresh, evergreen pine of Jisung’s scent, Changbin’s calming white oak. Chris used to smell distinctly like spruce, according to the others. Like a Christmas tree, they’d always joked. Steady, strong, lasting—and true to his name.

Chris doesn’t smell like that, now.

(He didn’t think he could hate this any more than he already did. But he does.)

The two of them leave once Felix returns to the room with juice. Chris sits up as best as he can, one shoulder leaning against the wall as Felix holds the cup up for him and directs the straw through metal, until his dry, parched lips touch it. The cool, close-to-room-temperature orange juice slides across his tongue, along the walls of his cheeks, acidic and shockingly sour.

Chris’ teeth itch. He tips his head forward a little more, chewing idly on the plastic, molars finding some relief until Felix tugs the straw away, and holds out the rubber mouth-guard that one of the managers had dropped off for him a couple of days ago. Chris opens his mouth, lets Felix stick it through his muzzle, and gnaws on it as he watches Felix with heavy eyes.

In his mind, he imagines himself running his teeth along Felix’s shoulder, biting down on his lovely, bare skin instead. Marking him the way his senses are screaming for him to. The perfect imprint of his canines low on Felix’s neck for everyone to see.

He sways forward a little, and bumps his muzzle against Felix’s shoulder, letting out a needy little sound. Felix lets out a soft laugh, and tilts his head to nuzzle along Chris’ hairline, nosing warm, dry kisses into his sweaty hair and down along the line of his neck. _Scent me,_ Chris thinks, voice lost to the throes of his own exhaustion, _please, want to feel you. Pack, mate, home._

Felix must pick up on the distress in his scent, because he’s running his hands over Chris’ shoulders, his arms, his hands, tugging his wrists close to press open-mouthed kisses to either of them before doing the same to his neck. For a second, one beautiful second, the tension drains from Chris’ body, and he remembers what it’s like to feel normal again.

Over the next few moments, Chris blinks in and out of reality. He’s sitting up, and then he’s lying down, and then, Felix is lying alongside him, arms fastened securely around his waist, holding him as he shakes through the hurt.

Just a little longer, and it’ll be over.

The morning of his rut, Chris stumbles out of his own bunk half-awake, and follows his nose straight to Felix—also barely awake and busy rubbing at his eyes as he stands by the door—whom he pins against the wall with one swift motion, fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt. Felix, who blinks up at him in surprise and breathes in and lets his mouth fall open in knowing. And Chris—Chris _wants._

His heart-rate spikes, blood rushing through his veins.

Someone attempts to pull him away as they shout something, one hand on his arm, and Chris whips his head aside and snarls, fangs bared. His grip on Felix tightens. No one’s taking him from Chris, _no one—_

Then, someone’s throwing water in his face, water icy enough to stun, and a whimper rips itself from his throat involuntarily as he flinches so hard that he stumbles into the dresser beside them. Chris coughs, blinking back into consciousness as he straightens back up.

Seungmin’s standing beside Changbin with an empty mug in his hand, inhaling sharply.

Chris’ head is still foggy with impending rut, but his stomach flips with the sinking realisation of how he’s behaved. He finally lets go of Felix, who just leans back against the wall looking completely unruffled by the incident, and steps back, mouth twisting unhappily. “Sorry,” he whispers, “sorry, m’so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Felix says. “I know it’s hard.”

Chris drags his hand down his face, shoulders curling in on himself.

A hand tugs at his sleeve. It’s Seungmin, who mumbles, “I’m sorry too.” His own scent is faint, but Chris can still pick up on it. Earnest, apologetic.

Chris takes his hand, squeezes it, and says, “Thanks.”

Changbin’s grip on his arm remains firm, but his voice is gentle when he says, “It’s probably time to head upstairs, huh?”

He’s spared a moment to say goodbye to the others for a bit before their manager, Soohyun, comes to get him. Jisung gives him a hug, and both Changbin and Minho come over to thump him on the shoulder. Hyunjin and Jeongin hang back, but tell him it’ll be fine. They know what it’s like. It’ll be okay.

Before he walks out the door, Felix bounces over to press something into his hands. It’s one of his shirts, and belatedly Chris realises it’s the same one he’s been wearing for the last three days.

Felix lets their wrists touch, and he says, “See you tomorrow, Channie-hyung.”

It’ll be just fine.

They travel the two floors up to the containment dorm, and Chris takes a seat on the bed as they lock the door. It’s a sparse room, but he supposes that makes it easy to clean. He takes a moment to scout it out, wanting to know what he’s been left with. There are pills in a cup on the table by the bed. He cracks open one of the drawers to find several bottles of water, and a few rolls of kimbap in another. There’s lube in a bottom drawer. Lots of it. A bathroom’s attached to the room, small and functional.

A ping from the door. Soohyun’s voice filters through the system. “I’ll come get you once you call, alright?”

Chris doesn’t answer. He listens for the footsteps leading away before leaning over to take the suppression medication they’ve left out for him. It won’t suppress his rut completely, not quite, since it’s his first—but he’d been told that it would make things a little easier. That it wouldn’t be as bad.

The pills dissolve on the back of his tongue, bitter and flat.

He pushes himself off the bed and heads into the bathroom to take a leak. The mirror’s clean, reflecting himself back in his own bloodshot eyes as he washes his hands. His skin’s flushed up to the tips of his ears. There’s a redness around his mouth that’s the product of days of chewing on his own lips, claim-hungry and irritated by the lack of mouth-to-skin contact.

He feels like he’s going to burst out of his own skin. He’s scared.

Chris paces up and down the little room, does push-ups to try to relieve the building tension that’s stretching him thin, but it’s not enough.

The heat under his skin grows, and grows, and grows.

He takes his shirt and sweatpants off, and curls up on the bed. The smooth, clean sheets feel good against his overheated skin. Chris stretches out on his belly, pushing his face into the scentless pillow. Abruptly he misses Felix’s scent, and he fumbles for the shirt that Felix had given him, bringing it close to push his face into it. Felix has always smelled the same ever since Chris met him—like baked goods, like the sweetness of caramel popcorn, the vanilla of a cinnamon roll, the taste of home.

Chris closes his eyes, breathes in deeply, and feels it settle over him. The calm.

And then, he shifts his feet from under him, and the push-back of the mattress meets the hard line of his dick. Chris’ mouth falls open, and he freezes.

He hadn’t realised he was hard. Now that he does, his focus sharpens and files down to a single point, unable to land on anything else.

Chris grinds down against the sheets idly, spreading his knees a little to give himself more balance. It’s not enough, so he shoves a hand into his boxers and full-body shudders at the throb of his own dick in his palm. It’s too dry, but he doesn’t want to get up now. Later, he tells himself, jerking his hips up into his own fist. Later.

It feels good, touching himself like this. The pleasure overrides the fog in his head, but it’s still not enough. He lets out a frustrated whine against the pillow. He feels thick with it—the desire to claim, the need to fuck something that isn’t his own hand.

He tilts his face, and inhales Felix’s scent yet again.

Felix, his sweet scent. His soft skin, bared only for Chris to see, even outside of his heats. Chris thinks about the last time they’d fucked. Felix, slick and hot and beautiful. Chris, nosing his way up along Felix’s thigh, licking him clean.

Chris grips the base of his own dick, and licks his lips, jerking himself harder. Thinks about his knot—the knot he still can’t believe he has now, it’s surreal to think about, but Chris pushes it aside for now—filling Felix up, swelling inside of him. Chris imagines seeing it, watching his cock remain inside Felix as he grinds into him, expanding until it makes Felix whimper and shiver and clench up, limbs shaking.

The thought is enough to make him come, the orgasm hitting him without warning. He spills over his hand, breathing hard, and he kicks his boxers off a second later. It hadn’t been enough. He’s still hard, cock swollen and red, come smeared across the head. Chris exhales angrily, rolling over for a moment to reach for the lube.

He doesn’t know how long he’ll feel like this, like he desperately has to get off, like it’s life or death.

Chris shuts his eyes again and tries to bring another memory to the surface of his mind. Felix, Felix, Felix. He’s the only one Chris needs, the only one Chris wants.

A memory comes, old and unbidden.

They used to joke about it during sex, playing things in reverse. Chris would be the omega, and Felix would be the beta. It’s been a while since they’d let that fantasy play out in real life, but Chris still remembers it.

He pushes slick one finger into himself, thinking about Felix being the one to fill him up instead. He hasn’t done this in a couple of months, but his body remembers exactly what it feels like, even this godforsaken, brand-new alpha body. Chris bites his lip, thrusts his hips down against his own hand, two fingers now, and imagines himself in Felix’s place. Felix, the alpha instead, breeding him, putting his own babies into Chris. Chris’ eyes flutter, feeling so worked up and over-sensitive that the moment he rubs over his own prostate the second, third, fourth time, he’s coming again. 

Felix taking him, the memory overlaid across the desire for something he no longer has the potential to be.

He takes a moment to catch his breath, and glances down at himself. He’s just half-hard now, but the heat hasn’t subsided. He’s full and well into rut now, and it seems like it’ll just be hours more of this.

It’s not enough, but he’ll make do. He’ll make do, and then he’s going to go home, after all of this is done. After all of this is done, he’ll get to go home to his pack, and his mate.

Just a little more.

A day later, Chris is hoarse-voiced as he leans against the wall, speaking to their manager through the door alarm system. It’d lasted a lot shorter than he’d expected, but, then again, the medication had probably capped it to a day, and he’d read that ruts never last more than two days anyway.

He’d taken a shower and put on the clean clothes left in the bathroom for him. The sheets have been stripped from the bed and dumped unceremoniously into a corner, so stained that Chris doesn’t quite want to think about it for a while.

Chris is sat on the bedside table, halfway through a second roll of kimbap and a seventh bottle of water when their manager opens the door to let him out. “Soohyun-hyung,” he greets, and Soohyun motions for him to come. “Sorry it’s such… a mess here.” The embarrassment floods his cheeks. He can’t imagine how it must smell even to him, a beta.

Soohyun just claps him on the shoulder and leads him through the hallway and to the stairs. “Don’t be ashamed about it,” he says, surprisingly honest, “it’s natural.”

Chris just nods, still a little wary, and follows him back down, Felix’s shirt clutched possessively in his hands.

The moment he’s let through the door to the dorm, there’s a cacophony of voices all yelling his name at once. Chris can’t help the way he laughs, seeing the way they all pop up from different places—the couch, their rooms, the kitchen—and look expectantly at him, eyes wide.

None of them approach too close though. Minho glances wordlessly at their manager for permission.

Soohyun turns to him, one hand on his shoulder, and asks, “You think you can handle yourself alright now? No repeats of the last week?”

Chris mulls the question over. He feels… a lot better, now. Far more present than before, the most clear-headed he’s been in weeks. He hadn’t realised it before, but the heat’s subsided, his teeth only ache just a bit, and the tension’s snapped like a rubber band, leaving nothing but a bone-deep exhaustion. “Yes,” he answers. He feels ready to sleep for a week straight even though he’d napped in intervals during his rut. “M’just… really, really tired.”

For the first time since presenting, he feels the leather straps around his face loosen. Chris breathes in relief to finally have it off, rubbing at the places around his cheeks where he’s probably marked up with red lines and mild bruising from having to keep it on for so long.

And then, Changbin comes over tentatively, and Chris immediately steps forward and reaches for him. The moment his hand closes over Changbin’s shoulder, he’s tugging him in close to bury his nose in his shoulder, eyes closing as he breathes his scent in deeply, running up along the line of his neck to his jaw.

Changbin pets his hair, and then Hyunjin’s coming up to bare his neck too, always submitting to Chris despite being an alpha himself. Because Chris is their leader. Chris always has been, no matter what.

Finally, Felix comes over and curls his hands into the shirt that Chris is still holding onto tightly, smiling. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Chris says, and he watches Felix lift his hands and press them gently to Chris’ cheeks, brushing the pads of his thumbs over his skin, before leaning in close to scent him. Chris takes Felix’s wrists, moves in, dips closer. Chris drags his mouth along Felix’s skin and savours the taste of him, the smell of him. Home and love and everything else that he knows is good. “Mate,” he murmurs. “Thank you.”

“Mate,” Felix echoes, tilting to nuzzle at his cheek. “No, you.”

“Don’t hog him all to yourself!” someone calls from the back, probably Jisung, “we wanna get in on some of that too!”

Chris allows them to pull him into the living room, where he’s toppled back onto the couch for everyone to clamber on top of and shove their terrible, painful limbs and elbows all over and into his sides. He doesn’t mind. He just lets them, and takes what he can from what they give him. Their submission, their easy touches, their respect.

His pack. His boys. He’s missed this too much.

As he sits there, cocooned in their warm embraces, Chris lets sleep take him, secure in the fact that they'll take care of him the same way he takes care of them.

They already have.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](http://twitter.com/SSEOMT) | [cc](http:/curiouscat.met/SSEOMT)


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